The new face of 'voluntary release'?

[Manny A]

Originally Posted by Publius

After seeing Ron Washington lose his challenge tonight in the first inning, it appears (just speculating) to me that MLB has issued an instruction to its umpires revising how "complete control" is to be judged.

Andrus gloved the ball and had it in his throwing hand when he dropped it, and the ruling went against him.

I can understand how the calling umpires made the calls they did--I thought Andrus dropped it in real time--but after seeing the replays not upholding the challenges, I believe something has changed in the MLB interpretation of this play.

To me, I can easily see how Andrus's call was "confirmed", while Kinsler's "stands". The ball fell straight down on Andrus, and it even appeared to start coming out of his glove before he could grip it with the bare hand. In Kinsler's play, he caught the ball when his hands were well separated, and then the ball went up as he tried to withdraw the ball with his bare hand.

I wouldn't be surprised if MLB umpires have been instructed to call Safe on all of these plays, and let replay fix things afterward.